January 15, 2018

Theology in a Nutshell - Jesus: Jesus' Birth by Steve Mueller

3. Jesus’ Birth

After centuries of preparation, at God’s appointed time (around 4 BC in our modern calendars), the drama of Christ’s incarnation began to unfold in the tiny, out of the way village of Nazareth in the northern part of the Holy Land called Galilee.

The accounts of Jesus’ birth are found in chapters 1–2 of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Although they relate the story in different ways, Matthew concentrating on Joseph and his dilemma about accepting Jesus as his son and Luke concentrating on Mary and her willing participation in God’s plan for salvation, both Gospel writers stress that Jesus was not just another human child born to human parents but the unique son of God born through the agency of God’s active power, the Holy Spirit.

Both Gospel writers stress that the infancy story of Jesus is really a miniature version of the rest of the Gospel: Jesus comes into our world, and each person must then decide to respond either positively with acceptance or negatively with hostility. So Joseph and Mary, their relatives Elizabeth and Zechariah, the shepherds and the magi recognize Jesus as God’s son sent for salvation. But threatened by this new-born king, King Herod and the Judean Jewish leaders respond with hatred and try to murder him. Similarly, each of us must also decide how we will respond to Christ’s presence in our lives today.

For more, see CCC, #484–86, 494 on Mary’s “yes” to God, and #525–26 on Christ’s birth.